Culture Crave Newsletter — #1 🍟

Welcome to the first Culture Crave newsletter 💥

This week’s update includes video game adaptations in development, the suspicious Flappy Bird return, Dune Messiah, an interview with McDonald’s archivist, and more

In the wake of the Minecraft live-action movie trailer receiving mixed reviews and the Watch Dogs live-action movie wrapping filming, we put together a list of 40 upcoming video game adaptations that are in various stages of development 🕹️

Film projects 🍿

• Super Maro Bros 2

• Sonic 3

• Detective Pikachu 2

• Mortal Kombat 2

• Uncharted 2

• Five Nights at Freddy’s 2

• Return to Silent Hill

• The Legend of Zelda

• Bioshock

• The Sims

• Street Fighter

• Ghost of Tsushima

• Gears of War

• Mega Man

• Duke Nukem

• Stray

• Watch Dogs

• Pac-Man

• Minecraft

• Metal Gear Solid

• Until Dawn

• Days Gone

• Gravity Rush

• Sniper Elite

• Stray

• Sifu

TV projects 📺

• Fallout S2

• Arcane S2

• God of War

• Tomb Raider (Amazon live-action)

• Like a Dragon: Yakuza

• Assassin’s Creed

• Devil May Cry

• Life is Strange

• Tomb Raider (Netflix animation)

• Mass Effect

Undecided 🤔

• Alan Wake

• Control

• Warhammer 40K

The fishy return of Flappy Bird 🤔

Flappy Bird has returned… except there are a lot of suspicious details around it ⬇️

• New owners Gametech Holdings LLC claim they acquired the rights and trademark from the original creator

• The OG creator, Dong Nyugen, previously said he would never sell his projects

• The new Flappy Bird account instantly followed a ton of crypto bros

• The company behind it appears to have ties to NFT projects 

• Based off court documents , It appears the OG creator potentially forgot about the trademark, which lead to the opportunity for it to be abandoned and attained by the new company

• Longer thread available on our Twitter (X) account

We have reached out to both Dong Nyugen and Gametech Holdings, but they did not respond by the time of this publication

UPDATE: Dong Nyugen has denounced the new game

• First, RIP to the voice of arguably the greatest villain in cinematic history, James Earl Jones 🐐

• Francis Ford Coppola is already doing whatever possible to try and recoup the budget for Megalopolis — including suing Variety for $15M over an article about his alleged behavior on set. There is also video footage. The film is tracking to earn $5M domestically in its opening weekend against a $120M budget… Coppola was also required to spend an extra $15M-$20M himself on marketing. The ‘Megaflopolis’ headlines are going to go crazy

• In other legal news, Peter Cushing’s longtime friend Kevin Francis is suing Disney/Lucasfilm over the use of Cushing’s likeness in Rogue One. Francis claims his production company had veto rights over such recreations, per a deal with Cushing over an unmade film. Disney tried to dismiss the case, but a judge ruled it requires a ‘full factual inquiry.’ Lucasfilm argues they own the rights from Star Wars: A New Hope. The Cushing Estate is also being sued, seemingly for letting it happen

• Michael B. Jordan has just signed on to star in and direct a remake of the classic Steve McQueen film The Thomas Crown Affair, which further means that I Am Legend 2 is not filming anytime soon. It’s meant to take place after the alternate ending where Will Smith’s character survives, and I heard from a source with knowledge of the rights deal that, because the story builds off the original material, it’s the first film adaptation for which Richard Matheson’s family will receive ancillary rights. Outside of when Matheson sold the rights in the 1950s to write his own adaptation—which was censored for violence and ultimately went unproduced—he never received any payment or residuals from the three Hollywood films that adapted the story. The only money came from book sales, which spiked around the films' releases. This case adds more weight to the ongoing debate about how the studio system takes advantage of authors and their intellectual property

• Denis Villenueve confirmed he’s actively working on 3 of his 4 upcoming projects — Dune Messiah, Rendezvous with Rama, and Cleopatra. Previously, he said whichever script gets done first, he will direct, but all signs point to his next film slated for release on December 18, 2026 to be Dune Messiah. Nuclear War is reportedly the fourth film he has in development — which is also happening at Legendary / WB

Ever wondered what it would be like to be McDonald’s archivist? We interviewed Mike Bullington to discuss the wide variety of projects he works on — from Marvel’s Loki to their latest limited edition Collector’s Meal cups that feature iconic franchises such as Shrek, Hot Wheels, and Jurassic Park. They’re so popular that some are even reselling for hundreds on Ebay 🍟🥤

Mike, so to become an archivist, you went and received a master’s degree in history. Are there any other paths for someone to become an archivist for a major brand or corporation without receiving their masters?

Great question. Most corporations like the master's degree. It can be in American history, library science, or archival science. Also, article archival certification is really important. So The Academy of Certified Archivists. Those are the paths that will take you to become a corporate archivist.

I used to work in the newsroom for a site called fandom.com, it’s essentially a wiki service for all kinds of movie, tv and video games franchises. Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Marvel, anything people are fans of, there’s a wiki for. You actually have a wiki for your work on the Loki series. Did you know that?

Yeah, I was told that actually right before our interview! I was amazed. I would have never thought that would happen in graduate school. I never thought I'd be working for a brand called McDonald's. That was a great project to work on — Loki last year. A lot of fun. It was a lot of work. Just to see that come together was amazing. Honestly, it was an archivist's dream role. I read the script and got to work with the creative team. I consulted about the uniforms, graphics, set construction, and dialogue.

It was set in rural Oklahoma in 1982. And the building on set, I said, ‘where's the drive-thru?’ And they said, ‘we don't have a drive-thru’. And I said, ‘Well, you need to put one in, because all McDonald's in rural America in the eighties had a drive-thru’. and then through CGI, they put it in. If that's my claim to fame, so be it. It was really an awesome project.

And I get to continue to work on awesome projects. Look at this Collector's Meal. I've worked with the IPs and our team since December 2023 on this. We have 53 different properties on these cups. This is the crux of what I get to do almost daily and just to help share the story of our brand. It's tremendous.

What was your favorite collab for this new McDonald’s Collection?  

I would say it's the Teenie Beanie Babies. Long before I was working with the company, I took my two daughters in 1997 to try to get a beanie baby for each of them. People were crazy for them. We had to visit several restaurants … I was an applauded dad when I came home with two. They were harder to get than Chicago Bulls tickets when the Bulls were on their championship runs.

Circling back on Loki for a sec, when you said dialogue — is there a specific way that’s archived for how McDonald's employees had to talk in the 80s?

Just reviewing the dialogue to make sure it was correct. In terms of what the crew members should say at the counter when a customer interacts with them, they wanted to know about ambient noise in the kitchen… That was a tough one. I was a customer back in ‘82, but I don't have any memory of sound for something like that. McDonald's and Marvel wanted to be as authentic as it could be for the production. I think they pulled it off.

Are there any other film and TV projects you've worked on that you think took it to that level? Or are there any you're currently working on?

Well, there's some coming up that I can't share, but stay tuned more to come. And then one in the past… One that I wasn't really aware of was Argo, when he's eating McDonald's and there are wrappers, I remember our team said, ‘we need some packaging from this era.’ So I sent it off to them, but they never told me what it was going to be used for. Then I saw the movie and I said to myself, ah, now I know. Now, our teams clue me in well in advance what they're going to be used for. Now they're like, Hey, we're actually working with Marvel and it's going to be this big project that's based in 1982. I'm involved with details right from the beginning. I really appreciate that.

I read a decade old interview where you said your biggest advice to students was to not be afraid to try new things, to change course if it feels right. Is that still the same advice you would give to someone today?

It's exactly true. I never envisioned in graduate school that I would be sitting talking to you today representing this brand that everyone knows about around the world. I said in graduate school, the past was my future, right? But I didn't know what that would mean. I get to work for a company that everyone has a story with. I get to tell the story of McDonald's.

Last question: It sounds like you get to work with all kinds of employees at McDonald’s, from the CEO to the crews at the restaurants. What do you enjoy the most about that?

We call it McFamily, we all work together. I mean, our CEO's office contains tons of archive pieces. I get to talk to many folks in my journey at McDonald's. I met the creator of the Big Mac, our first African American owner operator, and this is unique to me, because they told me their stories firsthand and I can share those with others. The written word is great, but to have these first hand anecdotes is just tremendous. I know the creator of the McFlurry, we talk frequently. When I tell people this, they're just blown away. So, it's great.

That’s all for this week 🍿

Make sure to join 30K members in our Discord and follow us on Twitter, Threads, and Instagram. You can also follow my personal Twitter account.